


Making the Mark

by SmolDargon



Series: Adventures in Anatomy [9]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Piercings, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:07:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29984010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmolDargon/pseuds/SmolDargon
Summary: Art takes many forms. The canvas isn't always paper or stone.
Series: Adventures in Anatomy [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205429





	Making the Mark

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Brief mention of needles for the purpose of tattooing and piercing.

The sign on the front of the shop read "Skin Grafix" in bright neon blue. He had passed the shop several times while roaming downtown, and had always wondered what the inside looked like. With a name like that, he figured it would have to be of a similar aesthetic to Hot Topic. It sounded intriguing. Today, he was with the human, and they were actually going inside. It was darker, with several booths, each with a large chair, a machine of some sort, and an adjustable light source overhead. There was a counter in the corner, with a pair of younger-looking people behind it. They seemed to be having a discussion involving some relatively obscure, but metal-sounding, music groups. As he approached the counter with the human, the pair went totally silent, gawking at him. He was used to it by then.

"Dude…. Are you real?", asked the boy.

Papyrus was taken aback for a moment, nodding quietly in surprise.

The girl responded, "You are the most metal dude I've ever seen in my life, I love it."

The two stared in awe at the actual, honest-to-god, walking, talking skeleton in their shop as though he were the greatest thing to ever grace them with his presence. It was a far cry from the way many humans treated him, and he was both amused and uncomfortable.

The human cleared her throat, interjecting, "Look, I know he's great, but can you maybe tear your eyes off him long enough to check me in?"

She sounded amused, a playful grin on her face. Papyrus flushed orange at her compliment. The two seemed abashed, and verified the human's appointment, asking her to sit for a moment while they fetched the artist. They continued to quietly marvel at the skeleton as they waited.

"SO, YOU'RE HERE TO SEE AN ARTIST? YOU NEVER STRUCK ME AS THE TYPE TO ENJOY CLASSICAL ART."

She gave him a look of mock irritation.

"Are you kidding? Classical art is the perfect meme material!"

He groaned, "OH STARS, YOU'VE BEEN HANGING OUT WITH SANS TOO MUCH."

She laughed and shook her head.

"Oh, hardly, I was a meme god long before you guys even made it up here."

He rubbed his temples, already planning to give his brother a stern lecture on quality humor.

"And besides," she continued, "I'm not here for a painting. I'm here for skin art."

She finally shed her pullover, revealing a black tanktop with "Metallica" emblazoned across the chest. He'd never seen her in anything sleeveless before, and so it was only now that he noticed the designs on her forearms and her left shoulder. The right forearm had two lines of what appeared to be writing, though the font and language were strange and he was unable to decipher it. The left forearm showed part of a twenty-sided die with the twenty facing up and a dragon curled tightly around it. He actually recognized the design on her left shoulder; it was a shrine of Akatosh from the game "Skyrim". Sans had played it off and on, and on his worst days, Papyrus would sit on the couch with him for hours just watching. They liked to wander together.

She flipped her braided hair off her shoulder so it hung down her back instead, draping her jacket over an arm. Papyrus was in awe; he'd seen tattoos before, but he had never realized the human had them. He had always wondered how they were acquired. His first thought was to reach for her arm to get a better look, but he paused, thinking better of it. She chuckled softly, offering her right arm to him.

He had always wondered what skin felt like. It was warm, softer than he expected, and it had a give to it that he didn't anticipate. He found that if he ran his fingers over her tattoo, he could feel the faintest ridges of the text in her flesh. In doing so, he noticed that as her skin gave around his fingers, he could warp the image of the tattoo. He couldn't help but snicker at this discovery.

"Please do not.", she chided, still smiling in amusement. He grinned sheepishly, releasing her arm.

"HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT TO GET? I THINK IF I HAD SKIN, I'D GET A TATTOO OF A PINUP SKELETON LEANING UP AGAINST A RED SPORTS CAR."

"Oh my god, Pap, what even?"

She was imagining Papyrus in a 50's style pinup outfit, draped fetchingly across the hood of his red, classic-style mustang, and the mental image was utterly hilarious. She fought to keep her laughter to a minimum, reducing it to a strangled wheeze, burying her face in her hands. He looked on in confusion. He thought it was a fantastic idea. Maybe he should try posing dramatically with his car on one of his better days. The human finally calmed down enough to explain what she was actually getting.

"I'm going to get more work done on this shoulder," she gestured to her left shoulder, "there's still eight other deities in the Elder Scrolls universe, and I'm gonna put all of 'em up here. Just getting two or three done today. There's a lot of linework, not to mention to monetary cost. But eventually, I'll have all nine of them represented here."

The skeleton nodded, but was distracted by the wall behind her before he could respond adequately. It was full of jewelry, although he couldn't figure out where it was supposed to go. Maybe they were pendants? No, there was no chain to put them on. The human turned sharply around, following his gaze.

"Ah, the wall of piercings."

"THE WALL OF _WHAT NOW_?"

"Piercings. Jewelry you put in holes in the skin."

Now, he was extremely uncomfortable.

"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME… HUMANS PUNCH HOLES IN THEMSELVES… PURELY TO SUSPEND PIECES OF METAL… _FOR FUN_?!"

"Well, that's wording it a bit strongly… It's for aesthetics. It looks good. Same reason we get tattoos. I've got piercings, Pap, I assumed you knew this?"

He stared at her in horror. This only served to confirm his belief that humans were hellbeasts who did as they pleased simply because they could. In response, she gestured to her ears, where he noticed that, certainly enough, she had metal in them. Four tiny steel balls, one to each earlobe and another on the cartilinagious membranes toward the top of her ear.

"DOESN'T THAT HURT?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, "Eh, only when you first get 'em. The lobes were no biggie; I had them done when I was like four years old."

Papyrus spluttered, unable to formulate a coherent response.

"The cartilage ones I've actually had done and redone a few times. The most recent instance, I was eighteen, I think. They hurt worse than the lobes, and take longer to heal. But in both cases, once they finish healing, they're not painful at all."

His mind finally caught up with him, and he was able to ask, "YOU MEAN TO TELL ME, YOU HAD HOLES PUT IN YOUR TINY, SENSITIVE EARS, WHEN YOU WERE A BABY?!"

"I wasn't a baby, I was four."

"FOUR! YEARS! YOU WERE PRACTICALLY AN INFANT!"

"That's… not how human development works, but anyway… Lots of kids have pierced earlobes. It was almost a rite of passage when I was younger."

He shifted uncomfortably. Humans had strange and barbaric rituals.

"YOU'RE CERTAIN IT'S NOT PAINFUL?"

She gave him a reassuring look.

"It only hurts for a moment when you get them, and the soreness goes away in a few weeks. Beyond that, they're painless."

A thought crossed his mind.

"DID… THE TATTOOS HURT TOO?"

She nodded, "Yeah, they hurt the whole time you're getting them, and for a week or two after, depending on their size. You have to take special care of them, since they're effectively just massive skin injuries. There's a reason I keep Bacitracin on hand, and it's not for blisters and scrapes."

Papyrus cringed, but before he could respond further, the artist walked over, greeting the human like an old, if relatively distant, friend. Apparently, he had done two of her four tattoos, including the shoulder piece she was adding onto. They discussed the existing design, and a few minor changes she wanted, as well as some considerations for their difficulty and price. After a few minutes, they came to an agreement, and he invited her back to a booth. She beckoned him over, telling him he could watch, but he had to lean over the short wall; only the artist and client could be actually inside the booth. That made sense; they were small, and left little room for spectators. Not for the first time, Papyrus was grateful for his height.

The artist applied a bit of thick cream to the human's arm over the spot she was having worked on, then produced a plastic item with a couple pieces of metal in it, scraping it against her skin. When questioned, he explained it was a razor blade, and that he was shaving the fine hairs off the area so he had clean skin to work with. He continued prepping, explaining the process as he went, from the sanitizing of her skin to the assembly of the apparatus used to make the actual tattoo. Papyrus blanched when the artist explained that tattoos were created by using needles to inject ink under the first layer of skin. The human reassured him that it didn't look the same as medical injections.

"I'm phobic of needles. It takes three people to put an IV catheter in me. But this doesn't look or feel the same, so even though it should be scary to me, it isn't. I promise, it will be fine."

He shifted from one foot to the other nervously.

"WILL IT... BLEED?"

"Maybe a little, but nothing major. You remember when my cat used me as a springboard to hop the back of the couch and left that big gash in the back of my hand?"

He nodded.

"That bled more than this will, and they feel about the same in terms of pain. Relax. It's no big deal."

He anxiously leaned over the wall, just in time for the artist to get started. The human barely registered the pain for the most part, only really reacting when the needle was in the same general spot for too long. The most she did was say "ouch" at a normal speaking volume. The artist worked for a good couple of hours, adding three new symbols to the human's shoulder, all in black line art. At the end, Papyrus watched as the artist wiped the blood and excess ink from her skin, applied some antibiotic ointment, and bandaged the site.

"The usual instructions, Gary?"

The artist nodded an affirmative, "Yep! Change that daily at minimum, keep it out of the sun and stay away from chlorinated pools til it fully heals."

She thanked him and went to the counter to pay. Papyrus was once again practically worshipped by the clerks, and this time he was happy for the distraction. He was amazed that she had been so stoic throughout the procedure, even though he knew it had hurt. Once they got back to the car, he slumped into his seat, having not noticed how tense he had been the last couple hours. The human gently patted his shoulder.

"You alright?"

He spoke in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, "I didn't realize how anxious I was."

She nodded, reminding him to relax on the way home. She cranked the car, throwing her seatbelt on and preparing to back out of the lot. Something was bothering him.

"YOU MENTIONED A FOURTH TATTOO."

She paused just as she was about to shift into reverse. She removed her phone from its mount on the dashboard, seemingly searching for something. After a few moments, she handed it to Papyrus. It was an old picture of her. She had short hair, barely grazing her shoulders, and she was completely topless, though with her back to the camera to preserve her modesty. The tattoo in question was a series of runes running the length of her spine. He could actually see how painful it had been; the skin around the runes was red and irritated, more so toward the top of the tattoo.

"WHAT DOES IT SAY?"

She was silent for a moment, then shook her head.

"I'm not saying."

It seemed that one was more personal than the others. He nodded, returning her phone to the mount. They lapsed into a comfortable silence on the drive home.

**Author's Note:**

> "Didn't we see her sleeveless in Breathless?" No, we did not. She wore a thin longsleeve shirt and tights to the beach. She has her reasons.


End file.
